LL-L "Pronouns" 2002.09.01 (01) [E]

Sun Sep 1 18:48:20 UTC 2002

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From: "Daniel Prohaska" <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2002.08.31 (03) [E]

Thanks Sandy,

Dan

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Morphology"

> From: "Daniel Prohaska" <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2002.08.30 (10) [S]
>
> Dear Scots speakers, John and Sandy,
>
>   Could you tell me how much alive a "thou"-form is in mainland Scots.
I
> know Shetland Scots has a "du"-form (I don`t know about Orkney).

Daniel,

The only use of the "thou" form I actually hear in spoken
Scots is "tu" (pronounced as a short "too" - /tu/) which as
far as I know is used here and there throughout the south
of Scotland. This takes the -s form as you suggested, eg
"tu kens": "thou knowest".

I can't seem to think of any corresponding "thy" or "thee"
forms.

This is _only_ used when speaking to young children or pets,
don't try it on adults! You can see it in Burns's children's
story at:

http://scotstext.org/pages/resultspage.asp?text=1517&pagetype=text

(note that the apparent inconsistency in use between "Whare's
tu gaun?" and "Whare tu gaun?" reflects the original text -
I didn't correct it because it's acceptable to drop the
copula in Scots in some places, and after the question word
"whare" is one of those places).

Of course, use of the "thou" (pronounced "thoo" - /Du:/) is
still going healthy in more formal Scots such as Bible
translation, and is seen throughout the corpus of traditional
Scots song and poetry. Here are some usages from Herd's 1776
collection of Scots songs...

>>From "The Bonny Lass o Anglesey":

Fifteen ploughs but and a mill,
   I'll gie thee till the day thou die;
And the fairest knight in a' my court,
   To chuse thy husband for to be.

I believe that here the "die" /di:/ is uninflected because
it's the subjunctive (as well as helping the rhyme!).

>>From "Auld Guidman":

Thy auld guidman that thou tells of,
    The country kens where he was born,

Showing what's usually considered to be the strictly correct
Scots -s ending, although this song also shows that Scots
writers often succumb to the King James English forms, as in
the following two lines that seem to show both Scots and King
James English usages:

Why dost thou pleen? I thee maintain,
    For meal and mawt thou disna want;

There are many examples of closely mixed forms like this in
this collection. I'm inclined to think that the -s forms are
Scots and the -st forms arise only because the Scors writers
are thoroughly acquainted with the King James Bible.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: "Luc Hellinckx" <luc.hellinckx at pandora.be>
Subject: Morphology

Beste leeglanners,

Very interesting what Sandy wrote here (regarding the use of "thy" and
"thee") :

> This is _only_ used when speaking to young children or pets,
> don't try it on adults! You can see it in Burns's children's
> story at:
>
> http://scotstext.org/pages/resultspage.asp?text=1517&pagetype=text

We also have an example (only 1 example !) of where a language relict
(more
than 600 years old) is used but only when very young children are
addressed
: "biterkes" (litterally "bijterkes" ...for "teeth"). In every, every
other
single word (except "kijken" but that's a totally different story) a
dutch
"ij" is pronounced "aë".

I find it very much amazing that old language characteristics are being
transferred to young children because linguistic research in the
Netherlands
has often proved that usually women are much less prone to conservative
speech than men.

Any other examples of this weird effect ?

What's happening in women's brains when they are cherishing their babies
and using these very specific "nurse-idioms" ? It seems like a return to
some "primeval state", so to speak *s*. Which probably changes later on
when a child is growing up ?

Greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

From: corber <corber at shaw.ca>
Subject: du,thou

In some older versions of Mennonite Plaut-Dietsch younger people or
equals are addressed "du" ,but an older person is addressed
"ju,or jhie". Cornelius Bergen

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

In most Northern Lowlands Saxon (Low German) dialects of Germany,
"familiar" _du_ [du:] (obj. _di_ [di:], gen. _dien_ [di:n], plural _ji_
[(d)ji:], obj. _ju_ [(d)ju:], gen. _juun_ [(d)ju:n]) is the natural,
native way of addressing everyone, and this is retained in many rural
communities.
Polite forms were occasionally used in the past (pre-20th century) in
addressing people of "superior" social standing (e.g., squires,
aristocrats, "professionals"), and the normal way was to use the plural
forms in addressing one person.  Conversely, the third person pronouns
(_he_ [hE.I] 'he', _se_ [zE.I] 'she', 'they') could be used in
addressing people of "inferior" social standing.  (In other words, there
used to be three levels of address: superior, equal, inferior.)

Nowadays, most people feel compelled to use a conversion of the German
system by saying (German _Sie_ >) _Se_ [zE.I] -- originally the third
person plural pronoun, i.e., "they" -- in addressing someone with whom
one does not have a close or familiar relationship.  However, this
conversion is imperfect: following the German pattern, the objective
form ought to be _Jüm_ (< _jüm_ 'them'), but most people use _Se_, based
on German accusative _Sie_.  (LS does not morphologically distinguish
accusative and dative but, like most other Lowlands languages, has only
one common objective form.)

Some LS speakers, especially those of rural background, perceive this
relatively recent innovation as unnatural, but they will usually go
along with it in reciprocation, in fear of sounding impolite.  But as
soon as you ask them to use _du_, many of them will express relief and
remind you that this *is* after all much more normal and natural among
_Plattdüütsche_.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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